


Louder Than Sirens, Louder Than Bells

by PanBoleyn



Series: At The Touch of Your Hand [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU after Avengers 1, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Avengers Tower, F/M, Multi, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-15 01:24:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5766571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanBoleyn/pseuds/PanBoleyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Steve's off taking a month to find himself before working out how to be triadic soulmates with Tony and Pepper, Tony and Pepper balance connecting to their wayward third and bringing Avengers and company to the Tower. All seems to be going well - until a new unexpected bond turns things upside down once again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Louder Than Sirens, Louder Than Bells

**Author's Note:**

> So... I've technically been working on this since 2013? That's the main reason why this verse goes AU after the events of the first Avengers, although I do intend to work some Phase 2 elements in where they work out. Darcy in this verse exhibits a largely passive (but useful for information) mutant ability called visual empathy and technically I consider this the XMCU - aka, the X-Men movieverse is in the same continuity.
> 
> Details on the logistics of this particular soulmate verse can be found [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RRVzscbKcuDEmxXE6oe2hPml4E9okdH0fx0sKqUXiqg/edit?usp=sharing) (ignore the 23rd century bits, there is also a Star Trek fic set more or less in the same continuity).

After the phone call ends, Tony goes back to his workshop, pulling up the plans for the Tower renovations. He leans back in his seat a little, expanding the hologram so he can see the details for each floor. There isn't much yet, he's barely started work, after all. About all he's really worked on is the common floor, because that's easy.

 

 

TV room, kitchen, gym, training room – the difference between the gym and the training room is that the latter is going to be set up to create scenarios for them to fight. The gym is mostly standard, though he figures Thor and Cap – _Steve_ – probably both need reinforced equipment. Easy enough to take care of, and unfortunately not distracting enough. He considers pulling up plans for the Mark VIII, but he doesn't really want to remind himself about _why_ he wants the new suit to be functional in space right now either.

 

 

Which leaves him dwelling on an hour or so ago, when he'd finally tracked down Steve's apartment, knocking until it became clear there was no answer and there wasn't going to be. It hadn't been fun, realizing that the apartment was empty. When Tony had driven off the day before, he'd pretty much expected to find Steve wherever SHIELD had stashed him, waiting for the next mission like a good little soldier. He hadn't expected the snippy phone conversation – well, no, OK, he kind of had expected their next conversation to be like that – or for the guy to have taken off on his motorcycle. Who _does_ that after bonding?

 

 

Although, who drives off and leaves the person they'd just bonded to in their rearview, really? He probably shouldn't cast stones – and that is Pepper's influence on him, part the bond and part just being in close proximity for over a decade. But it's entirely her fault. Well... OK, only mostly. Anyway, the point is that Steve threw him a curveball and Tony doesn't like that. He'd figured, he had the guy pegged, more or less. Good little soldier boy, even if he did realize Fury wasn't to be trusted. Maybe he needs to rethink things a little?

 

 

Not that he can right now – Steve is in Philadelphia and he won't be back for a month, so whatever he might have to rethink is something he can't do without being able to see the person in question. And Pepper is back in D.C. to finish up the glad-handing she was supposed to be doing when everything went nuts over Manhattan and she rushed back.

 

 

So instead of reworking his plans with Steve or going to Pepper, what Tony's going to do is move on to designing the individual quarters. Bruce will be back in a week or so, once all his loose ends are tied up. Tony suspects there's some kind of secret stashes or something that Bruce is taking care of, whatever people who have been living on the run have as backup plans. He's still trying to get ahold of Dr. Jane Foster and her assistant Darcy Lewis – simple logic, anyone figures out they're close to Thor, they're in danger, and when Thor himself comes back he's likely to make a beeline for his girl and his friend, so it's more convenient all around if the two of them are living in the Tower as well.

 

 

 

Right. He has a plan. Start working out designs for Avengers and Co. quarters, and don't think about the fact that this soulmate thing is becoming all kinds of fucked up. It's a good plan. More or less.

 

 

 

That doesn't explain why he picks up his phone and texts Steve.

 

 

**Hey, if you know how to text, tell me about Philly? Never actually had a reason to visit anything there but a couple boardrooms.**

 

 

~ ~ ~

 

Bruce debates the wisdom of returning to New York all the way to the airport, through the long flight and two stopovers, and he's still less than sure of it when the plane finally touches down at JFK International. There is, after all, a very good reason – more than one – that kept him away from the U.S., in places no one would think to look. It's not being back in a city that bothers him; Kolkata, while nothing next to New York, was far from a calm place.

 

 

As he told Agent Romanoff, avoiding stress isn't the secret.

 

 

The trouble is that here, he has attachments. He can't just pick up and leave again if there's an incident. He blends in better in New York than he did in Rio or Kolkata, admittedly, because in New York a white guy in his early forties with the look of a mildly sloppy professor isn't as odd as it was in the parts of Rio and Kolkata he'd hidden away in. But he can't forget what happened when he was in New York before – not for the Chitauri, but in Harlem, when...

 

 

He doesn't regret it, really. Blonsky had to be stopped, was on him and Ross both, the nightmare they both created. Bruce wonders sometimes what they did with Blonsky, how in the hell they managed to contain him. All he knows, because he did poke into it a little, is that they contacted an Xavier and then a Morgan about it – no first names, no details that Bruce could track without risking leaving a trail of his own. But he knows the name Xavier, knows that means mutants and while it makes sense, he figures he probably doesn't want to know more.

 

 

If he knows more, after all, he'll feel compelled to figure out a loophole, and if things go wrong, someone who can stop him will be necessary. If he knows how they do it, if he has the time to think of ways around it... No. Not if he's going to stop running. There has to be something in place, and one thing SHIELD can always be counted on to have is contingency plans to control potential dangers. Bastards.

 

 

It's a sick kind of security, but he'll take it. Betty would be furious if she knew, but he hasn't contacted her. She found her soulmate, and he – he's happy for her. He always loved her, always will, and even if, once, they could have made their best life without either of them being bonded to each other, this life is no longer that one. The anger these facts leave is helpful, anyway – a constant buzz of anger to keep the beast caged.

 

 

“There you are, get over here!” Tony's voice breaks through Bruce's thoughts, and the smile he offers the other man is genuine, if a bit wan. He still really isn't comfortable with this.

 

 

“Hello, Tony,” he says, keeping his voice even. He remembers collecting his bag from Agent Romanoff just as her eyes actually went wide, and he'd turned to see Tony and Cap shaking hands, only they'd been frozen in place. Everyone knows what a bonding looks like, even if you haven't experienced it. Bruce had been a little surprised, actually, when Tony's reaction had been to drive off with him, but he'd understood once he thought about it.

 

 

After all, when you've barely managed to get along with someone, and suddenly you're bonded, what do you do? Still, Bruce is curious enough to ask, “Is Cap moving in too?”

 

 

Tony frowns as they head for his car. “Well, in a little less than a month, yeah. He took off on a road trip! He and Pepper have been talking on the phone, I've been texting him, but a road trip! He's trying to find the new century, or himself, or something. Whatever. Anyway, you're first to move in, but I've got Thor's bondmate coming – Jane Foster, kid's brilliant.”

 

 

“I've seen some of her work.” Only recently – some of her research had been included in the Tesseract information, and Bruce had been intrigued enough by it to look a little further. Especially since Foster's area of expertise, while something he would probably once have dismissed as easily as most others in the scientific community, is now starting to look alarmingly relevant. “So just Dr. Foster?”

 

 

“She has an assistant, Darcy Lewis. Kid tased the God of Thunder, so I figure she'll be a fun addition. Maybe I'll steal her, make her my lab monkey. Or yours.”

 

 

“I never really liked having a lab assistant, actually.” This is true; he'd mostly had college student interns, and inevitably they weren't quite up to scratch. Liam Cortez, his last assistant, the kid with the triadic ring on his hand and a weird sense of knowing way more than he should, had been the best of them, but even so. “No luck getting the agents to move in?”

 

 

“Not yet, anyway. I'm sure I will – it's common sense, keeping the team close, so that should work on them eventually.”

 

 

Common sense, he says. Bruce doesn't think so, but he doesn't say anything. If Tony wants to rationalize his picking up superhuman and super-agent strays, well, that's his prerogative. Bruce is going to have enough to worry about just handling being one of them, probably.

 

 

~ ~ ~

 

 

Seriously, Darcy can't bring herself to care that she and Jane are here as Thor-bait – Tony didn't say that but she's no fool. It gets her living in Manhattan, in this kickass building with her own rent-free, amazing suite. Also, with one of her old buddies from the Institute living in Chinatown, one living in Brooklyn, and both working in Manhattan, it gets even better. She's going to have to make time to hang out with Mike and Nia once she's settled in, that's non-negotiable.

 

 

Tony's giving her and Jane the tour when someone else joins them. He's about Tony's age, just a little too skinny, in worn clothes and glasses. His hair is curly, a greying brown, and there's a pair of glasses stuck in the collar of his shirt. He's not an unattractive guy, despite the unkempt look of him, but he's hardly Darcy's usual type. For some reason, though, she feels hyper-aware of him. It feels like something she should recognize, but she can't place it, and so ignores it. Instead, she turns her focus to the shimmers of light around him, to the glowing threads that stretch away in all directions.

 

 

There's a light blue thread, shot through with darker blue and a warm brown, that connects him to Tony – growing affection, and a healthy mutual respect. Various threads stretch off into the distance in different colors; almost all of them are pastel shades, casual relationships. Another one, jet-black with a shimmer of poisonous neon green. Whoever that connects to is someone this guy really hates. There's one that isn't pastel, that is instead a deep indigo blue – the purple in it slowly fading away to just leave the blue. So, someone important to him, that he'd once loved romantically, but the romance is fading to a platonic, if still just as deep, affection. There's no white, threaded and flecked with other colors, so no soulmate.

 

 

Vaguely, Darcy hears Tony introduce the guy as Bruce Banner, but she's more interested in the neon green haze that surrounds him, overlaying his terra cotta (politely friendly) mood and the glowing threads of his connections. It's faint right now, but she's willing to bet it gets darker, because she actually did read the Avengers briefing pamphlet or whatever it was and so she knows that Bruce Banner turns into the Hulk.

 

 

Banner's introducing himself to Jane as Darcy reads him, a pale brown and terra cotta thread forming between them. Polite acquaintance, and the light brown of respect – for each other's work in their respective fields, Darcy guesses. There's a similar thread between Jane and Tony, and it's a color Darcy has seen a lot in various shades, since it tends to crop up a lot among, say, college professors and scientists.

 

 

Banner turns to her and offers a hand. Darcy takes it without thinking, expecting to see another terra cotta thread forming. Instead, there's a moment where she sees nothing, then a white thread flecked with shocked tangerine forms and then – She's frozen in the moment of bonding, and all she feels is pure _panic_. It's not her reaction, she realizes quickly enough; she herself is just stunned and now vaguely offended by how horrified Ban- _Bruce_ seems to be.

 

 

When they can let go, Bruce says nothing except “I, I'm sorry, I can't do this.” He's gone after that, and Darcy is really too bewildered to be insulted now. What the hell was that?

 

 

~ ~ ~

 

There's a green film over his vision, a sign that Bruce can't afford to ignore. He isn't losing it yet, but if he doesn't calm down, he will. So he goes to the guest room he's in until the quarters Tony's designing are done, dropping onto the bed and breathing carefully. Slowly, the green clears away, and he pulls back from the edge.

 

 

Not that anything is solved, of course. He just bonded – to a girl almost young enough to be his daughter, no less – and he has absolutely no idea what to do about that. He _can't_ have bonded, can't have put someone meant to be that important to him in danger that way. It's bad enough that he let Tony convince him to come to the Tower – at least Tony's promised there will be failsafes if the worst happens. With bonding, there can't really _be_ failsafes.

 

 

Bruce had started to believe – to _hope_ – that he wasn't going to bond. He'd never felt the need; before the accident he'd had Betty, and he couldn't imagine that anyone could mean more to him than she had. After... After, all he could think was that a soulmate would be in more danger from him than anyone. But, he'd sort of assumed he wasn't going to bond, considering all the places he'd been without doing so. It made it seem unlikely, so he'd started to relax. Apparently, he shouldn't have.

 

 

To make things worse, he feels vaguely guilty, as well. He'd picked up on the hint of offense coming from Darcy over his reaction, and he can't blame her. He would let her know that it's nothing to do with her, that he's certain she's a lovely person that anyone else would be lucky to have, but he thinks it's best if he steers clear of her. Because, as always, the Hulk disagrees with Bruce, had thought **Mine** when the bond happened. Bruce can't tell what that meant aside from being generally possessive. It could be better than he fears, or it could be bad. The Other Guy is hard to gauge – he seems to like Tony and will answer to Captain Rogers, at least so far, but it's tricky. And he can't risk things going badly. So he'll avoid Darcy, at least until he's sure he's got the Other Guy's reactions and his own instincts under control. It's a temporary plan at best, but what else is he going to do?

 

 

~ ~ ~

 

“I mean, I get that he's the Hulk, Jane and I got the whole rundown before we moved into the Tower, I get that things are complicated. But he just... ran away from me, like he thought I was going to attack or pounce on him or something. I don't even know,” Darcy says with a sigh, taking a sip of her coffee. Mike and Nia look at each other, then back to Darcy, clearly not quite sure where to go with this one.

 

 

“Well,” Nia says after a moment, forever the bashertologist with her clinical tone, “it's actually bad for him if he avoids you like that. Did he reject you outright – I mean, are you having the typical reactions, dizziness and vertigo?”

 

 

“No...”

 

 

“Well, small blessing for you both, then, he hasn't rejected the bond. I don't know how the Hulk works, but if it's anything like mutant powers, fighting this will only make his control shakier.”

 

 

“Wait, what about my control?” Darcy says with a frown. She hasn't noticed any changes, the waves and strands of light she sees aren't brighter or anything like that, but...

 

 

“Passive power,” Mike says before Nia can – of course, he remembers everything from back when they were helping Nia do bond research in high school. “Bond troubles don't really mess with passive abilities, only active ones.”

 

 

"If that’s true, then why aren’t you having problems?" Darcy asks, eyes on the opalescent strand shot through with several obvious colors. Red of attraction, blue for affection, a little pale grey flecked with light green - mild frustration and uncertainty. But most of all, bright gold; a sort of deep trust that she doesn't see often and certainly didn't expect to see on any of Mike's connections, not wary as he is. But she's distracted by the shock on Mike's face.

 

 

"Wh- I'm not bonded to anyone!"

 

 

"Yeah, you are," Darcy says, pointing to the strand only she sees.

 

 

"Subconscious bonds," Nia says, raising an eyebrow. "I know you know about them, Mike."

 

 

Mike shakes his head. "Well, whatever. It's Darcy's bonding issue we're talking about now, right?" He knows, Darcy realizes. Or at least he's suspected it, but for some reason he's not doing anything about it. She looks at Nia, whose silvery eyes meet hers, and they're agreed; they both know Mike's only playing stupid here. He knows, but he doesn't want to know, and any other day Darcy would push to find out why. Any other day, but not today.

 

 

Today is her bonding problem. Except she can already tell that neither of them really know much more about what to do with this mess than she does. Which is just freaking fantastic. She's heard by now that Tony and Pepper are linked to Captain America, of all people, who reacted by taking off on his motorcycle. Is this some kind of Avengers thing?

 

 

Well, no, that isn't fair. Thor's kind doesn't even _have_ soulmate bonds, but when his bond to Jane flared up – once he accepted his fate, he'd explained, he became more fully human and that was why the bond hadn't triggered immediately – he'd gone with it and never questioned it. Not that Jane was helped much by that when Thor had to go home, but at least he'd had, you know, reasons. Fixing the mess his psycho brother left. Not great, especially not for Jane who had ended up on anti-anxiety meds when she refused to take the bond blocker drug, and not for Darcy who'd been trying to take care of her.

 

 

But it had been understandable. Captain America taking off is kind of understandable, she guesses; he's only been awake for a month or something like that, and maybe he's overwhelmed. But Bruce won't even talk to her, won't even stay in the room with her.

 

 

She's going to do something. She has to do something. She's just not sure what yet.

 

 

~ ~ ~

 

 

“So where are you today?” Pepper asks, leaning back in her office chair. It's after hours, technically, but Tony's in the lab so he won't miss her yet. Instead, she calls Steve, putting him on speaker so she can relax instead of holding on to the phone.

 

 

“Baltimore, on the waterfront,” Steve answers, voice slightly tinny through the speakers. “I'm heading out to D.C. tomorrow, got an old friend who lives in the area. Gabe Jones, he was one of my Commandos. So how'd the move-in go?”

 

 

Pepper laughs. Both she and Tony had told Steve about Bruce's return, and the impending arrival of Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis, but apparently Tony didn't give him all the news. “It went great until Bruce bonded to Darcy Lewis, and now they're both avoiding each other. It gives me hope – we're handling things a lot better than they are.”

 

 

She's actually a little surprised when Steve laughs at that. “Well, sounds like it'd be hard to do worse. Somethin' in the air, y'think? All the bonding, I mean.” For a moment, he sounds like the Brooklyn boy she knows he is, and Pepper wonders if that's a mistake he made or a sign that maybe they're moving past the formalities a little.

 

 

“There's research on the topic – this Dr. Nia Morgan's the hotshot in the field right now. Tony and I looked into it a few times, when we couldn't find our third.” When we couldn't find you. “I think Darcy might know her, actually, from what she told me. So make of that what you will. Most people don't think bonds are fate anymore, just chemical reactions, but you're right, it is all a little strange.”

 

 

“I think,” Steve begins slowly, “that I'd rather there was something fated in it. Just a little – helps explain why I woke up when I did, y'know? I mean, I don't want to put any pressure on you, it just... It feels a little less random, a little less like just really godawful luck, if there's some reason for me being where I am. Does that make sense?”

 

 

Not really, because Pepper can't even begin to imagine Steve's perspective on this. The very idea of dying, only instead you wake up seventy years later, almost like time travel, almost like coming back to a different world altogether, isn't something she has a frame of reference for. But she can understand wanting a reason for things, so she says, “Yeah. Just don't forget we're not a Harlequin romance.”

 

 

That gets her another laugh. “No, let's hope not. I read some of that kind of book back in my day – I read _anything_ , spent so much time sick before the serum that whatever I could get my hands on was better than nothing. Got real bored real fast otherwise. Buck- Bucky used to take a wagon to the library for me when we were kids, and he'd pick the most random stuff. I flipped through a couple at some of the rest stops – they haven't gotten any better, I don't think.”

 

 

She can picture a skinny blond boy curled up under covers reading books, and she remembers long days in the window seat of her childhood room, doing the same thing. Tony, Pepper knows, was never so much of a reader, but the image of him as a small boy tinkering with a new invention isn't all that different, is it?

 

“No, probably haven't. Same cheesy plots, just more graphic.”

 

 

“Oh, well, that. Probably more taste than Tijuana Bibles.”

 

 

Pepper bursts out laughing. She can't believe this is the conversation they're having, and says so. Steve's answering laugh is soft but oddly soothing. They chat for a little longer, not about anything important, and when Pepper hangs up, she spins her chair to look at the view she hardly ever has time to appreciate.

 

 

Maybe, just maybe, they really can make something from all this, despite the surprise of it, despite Steve's displacement and the way he and Tony clashed, despite her own fears about being linked to not just one but two superheroes, despite Tony's bitter wariness of a man his father liked so much. They have something to go on, at least, which is more than Bruce and Darcy seem to have found so far.

 

 

How this is her life Pepper isn't certain, but really, all she can do is see it through. She's good at that.

 


End file.
